Austin round-up, Part 1

Copyright 2013: Houston Chronicle

Updated 12:03 am, Sunday, June 9, 2013

More money for the 2014-'15 biennial budget and a welcome spirit of bipartisanship on some of the big issues made the regular session of the 83rd Texas Legislature a more productive one than the forgettable 2011 meet-up in Austin. Thank heaven for small favors.

Here's Part One of our thumbs-up, thumbs-down assessment of the session. Part Two will be published on Wednesday:

Criminal Justice

Texas has made great progress in criminal justice, but we shouldn't presume to know what we don't know. The failed HB 166, which would have created the Timothy Cole Exoneration Review Commission, was a noble attempt to reveal where our justice system has broken down and connect the dots between times we've sent innocent people to jail. The bill made headlines after an impassioned (perhaps overly so) testimony before a legislative committee by Cory Session, whose brother Timothy Cole died in prison while serving a 25-year sentence for a rape he did not commit.

SB 1611, known as the Michael Morton Act, was approved unanimously by both houses and was the first bill signed by Gov. Rick Perry, a healthy sign that Texas is trying to change from a "hang 'em high" reputation to "get it right." The new law seeks to prevent anything like Morton's shameful ordeal of spending nearly 25 years behind bars after a prosecutor hid exculpatory evidence. Prosecutors will now have to turn over all evidence against a suspect.

Courts often rely on scientific experts to help determine guilt or innocence, but what happens if the science changes after the trial is completed? Or what if the science presented at trial is revealed to be bunk? In criminal courts, it could be a matter of life or death. SB 344 would allow defendants to challenge convictions that were based on discredited scientific methods. Perry should sign this bill, though it is too late for men like Cameron Todd Willingham, who was put to death for a murder by arson charge supported by fire science methods revealed to be outdated and inaccurate.

Education

The Legislature restored only $4 billion of the $5.4 billion it cut from K-12 education in 2011.

To graduate from high school, Texas students will have to pass five standardized tests - a far more reasonable number than the previous 15.

The state lifted its cap on the number of charter schools, and gave the Texas Education Agency much-needed power to crack down on low-performing charters.

Health

The Legislature turned down the federal offer to subsidize Medicaid coverage for roughly 1 million uninsured Texans, but didn't create its own plan to handle their medical costs.

Health care advocates and business groups were unable to move Gov. Rick Perry and the Texas Legislature to expand the state's Medicaid population under the Affordable Care Act, even though it meant shunning an estimated $100 billion over time. The money would have assisted in providing health insurance to an additional 1 million Texans, according to the state's Health and Human Services Commission.

Last session lawmakers cut funding for women's preventive health care by two-thirds, costing approximately 147,000 women access to care. This session lawmakers increased state funding to the Texas Family Planning Program by $32.1 million, replacing the same amount that the state will no longer receive from Washington; expanded women's preventive care funding by $100 million; and added $71.3 million to the Texas Women's Health Program.

Lawmakers did not adopt stringent abortion facility regulations or a "fetal pain" bill restricting access to abortion. They did not require welfare recipients to submit to a drug test.

A state that consistently ranks near the bottom on mental health care began to close the gap by dedicating hundreds of millions of dollars to prevent people who suffer from psychiatric illnesses from ending up homeless or in jail or a public hospital. Lawmakers agreed to put $1.77 billion into mental health care, an increase of $259 million over the previous biennial budget.

"It's been a truly transformational amount of money," state Rep. John Zerwas, R-Simonton, told the Texas Tribune. Zerwas is a physician.

Transportation

The Texas Department of Transportation wound up in the ditch this legislative session. TxDOT officials told lawmakers at the beginning of the session that the agency needed an additional $4 billion in revenue each year merely to maintain the state's congested status quo. They wanted another $1.6 billion for roads torn up by counties in the midst of an oil-drilling boom. What they got was $850 million, plus another $450 million for the county roads beat up by oil field activity. The Legislature also made it easier for communities to pay for roads with borrowed money.

Water

State lawmakers suffered through the 2011 drought just like the rest of us and came up with a workable long-term plan to fund this growing state's water future.

To Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst for his mastery of the important details of finance and water that shaped the end product, a self-financing revolving loan fund, available to municipalities and water authorities. The fund must be approved by voters in November.

Unacceptable leaks and burst pipes notwithstanding, the city of Houston is well-fixed for water. According to Mayor Annise Parker, the city will have to "play defense" with those resources as others come after them.

Texting while driving

A House bill to outlaw texting while driving died in the Senate Transportation Committee, despite passing the House 98-47 with wide bipartisan support.

The chairman of the Transportation Committee, Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville, refused to allow a vote on the bill, sponsored by former House Speaker Tom Craddick, R-Midland. "There were a number of members in the committee who wanted to vote no, and you had a lot of members on the floor who were going to vote no, and you have a governor who vetoed it last time who has never given any indication that he wouldn't veto it this time," Nichols told the Amarillo Globe-News.